Sunday Roast at Oscar & Otto

Oscar & Otto

Cuisine: Cafe breakfast/brunch/lunch at Otto; contemporary New Zealand at Oscar

Address: 51 The Strand, Tauranga

Phone: 07 282 7879

Website

Drinks: Licensed

Reservations: Recommended

 

Oscar & Otto was a cool idea when it started a couple of years ago and so it remains. Otto is the cafe, serving breakfasts brunches and lunches, then Oscar is the evening restaurant, right next door. It is the creation of Catherine MacLoughlin and Hamish Carter, both of whom have longterm history on the Tauranga food scene having first set up Alimento back in 2002 and running catering companies and other ventures since.

I've only been to Oscar once, sometime last year, but Jan has been to Otto a couple of times for lunch and has good things to say about their Duck Risotto ($19) and Fish & Chips ($19.50). But I keep hearing people say that their "Sunday Roast Night" is the best food deal in town at the moment so when some friends invited us to join them for roast pork last week we jumped at the chance. $28 for the roast plus a glass of house wine or beer.

And I'm so glad we did. I like the look of Oscar and Hamish provides a friendly welcome (it seems sometimes like he knows every single person coming into the restaurant). We stuck to the absolute basics and had a fantastic night: first a cocktail outside, then the roast pork with its accompanying glass of wine. It was a lovely evening. These were our opening drinks:

The Hugo

Hugo: elderflower, prosecco, gin, mint, soda water $14

Martini: classic $14

Moa Apple Cider $10

Heineken zero $9

One more (I forget)

The one that struck me most was the Hugo (I had the cider which was a bit boring but I was thirsty). It was a lovely refreshing combination and surprisingly intensely-flavoured. Good drink - good price.

Then it was on to the roast pork. The five of us all had that, along with a glass of wine each. One of the things that make this such a good deal is that Oscar has a pretty good wine list so their "house wine" is excellent.

(They also use the Corovin wine system, which pumps a protective layer of inert gas into the wine bottle to keep their wines fresh, enabling them to feature more by the glass than you might expect.) The wines we had:

 

Black Cottage Reserve Pinot Noir, Central Otago    usually $12.5

Esk Valley Pinot Gris, Hawkes Bay     usually $12

And the pork? It was absolutely delicious. Everyone agreed. There was also serious love at the table for the roasted beetroot that came with it. You could certainly be picky and point out that the five pieces of pork at the table were all different sizes and shapes. But even the smallest was generously large so that's not really a complaint, just an observation. (Please note that the dish looked rather better than this picture but I still keep forgetting to photograph before tucking in...)

Sorry, I started eating again before the photo - bad blogger!

All in all I pretty much agree with this being about this being one of the best deals in town right now. Take off the price of the wine and that plate of moist, fatty, porky roast pork costs about $16. Fantastic! I suspect we will be back to check out the chicken, lamb, beef and whatever else they decide to roast on a Sunday... bon appetite! 

 

 

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention again that my son Cohen has recently started work at Oscar. He was the one mixing the cocktails. Sadly this hasn't resulted in any discount for his ever-supportive father...